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Fair Use

Fair Use

After decades of ever more draconian statutes and judicial decisions, our intellectual property system has veered far away from its original purpose. Too often, our nation’s deeply held-commitments to promoting free speech and innovation seem to go out the window as soon as someone cries “infringement.” An unproven allegation that your video or blog post infringes copyright, or that your domain name infringes someone’s trademark, can be enough to shut down perfectly lawful speech. A bogus lawsuit based on an obscure patent can be enough to kill your promising and innovative startup.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Ideally, intellectual property law—generally, copyright, patent, and trademark—is supposed to embody a balanced incentive system. Copyrights and patents, for example, are supposed to encourage authors and inventors to create new things by helping them receive some compensation for that investment. At the same time, copyright and patent law put limits on authors’ and inventors’ rights, such as fair use (for copyright) and limited terms of protection, to help make sure that IP rights don’t unfairly inhibit new creativity.

Trademarks work a little differently—they are supposed to protect consumers by encouraging sellers of goods and services to stand by their brand, so consumers will know what they are buying. But these rights, too, are balanced by fair use and other limits.

When the system works, it can be an engine for creativity, innovation and consumer protection. When it doesn’t, IP rights have the opposite effect, giving IP owners a veto on innovation and free speech.

What does that veto look like? It looks like decades of litigation to try to strangle new technologies and services in the cradle, from the phonograph to mp3 players to BitTorrent to podcasting to the next technology someone’s inventing in their garage right now. It looks like lawsuits to shut down political activists simply because they're using a corporation’s trademarks in a parody site. It looks like a web of licenses, backed up by law, that limit your ability to tinker with, sell, give away, repair and generally use your devices.

At EFF, we’re fighting to restore balance to our IP laws and ensure that the Internet and digital technologies continue to empower you as a consumer, creator, innovator, scholar and citizen.

The Senate Judiciary Committee voted on the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act, aka the CASE Act. This was without any hearings for experts to explain the huge flaws in the bill as it’s currently written. And flaws there are. We’ve seen some version of the CASE Act pop up...

The Senate Judiciary Committee intends to vote on the CASE Act, legislation that would create a brand new quasi-court for copyright infringement claims. We have expressed numerous concerns with the legislation, and serious problems inherent with the bill have not been remedied by Congress before moving it forward. In...

A fight over unmasking an anonymous Reddit commenter has turned into a significant win for online speech and fair use. A federal court has affirmed the right to share copyrighted material for criticism and commentary, and shot down arguments that Internet users from outside the United States can’t...

San Francisco – The creator of popular post-fight commentary videos on YouTube is demanding an end to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC)’s unfair practice of sending takedown notices based on bogus copyright claims. The creator, John MacKay, is represented by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). MacKay operates the “Boxing...

San Francisco – On Monday, May 6 at 11am, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) will argue that a San Francisco court should quash a subpoena from the Watch Tower Bible and Tract Society aimed at getting the identity of an anonymous Reddit commenter. Watch Tower is the supervising body...